Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I'm not dead, but apparently I want to talk about what would happen if I were

Seeing as I'm single, I live alone, and I am occasionally morbid, I sometimes wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice and investigate if I went missing or broke my neck going down my stairs. If it happened on a week night, there is a good chance my boss would notice my absence within a day and track down my sister or my parents to investigate. I say merely "good chance" because my boss and I work in offices that are only approximately 30 feet away from one another, but as neither of us is exactly a wandering social butterfly at work, those 30 feet are apparently an insurmountable distance to cross unless absolutely necessary, and we often go full days without actually seeing each other's face. If I went missing or dead on one of those days, or perhaps over a long weekend, it is a bit unsettling to me to think how long it might go unnoticed. I can't decide if I should feel lucky I do not have any pets, as it ensures no animal (save maybe Samsa) will eat my face off before the medical examiner arrives, or if I should run out and acquire a pet post haste, knowing said pet might be so helpful as to do away with my remains in a tidy manner before any truly vile decomposition sets in.

Luckily, I may not have to worry about any of these scenarios, because lo, I have the Internets. And the Neighborhood Watch Group in my corner of the Internets (by which I mean 3Carnations) totally has my back. It took a mere week of no Internet activity this time for 3Carnations to send me an email making sure I'm still alive. I could survive a week with no food or water lying on my basement floor with a broken neck, right? She could totally have sent help in time? What's that? No? Well then. 3Cs, maybe this is the reason you should join Facebook: the ability to keep closer tabs on me and provide more prompt follow-up in case of my demise.

At any rate, I am fine. I always think I will have more time for blog reading and writing in the summer, given that there is nothing good on TV to distract me, but I forget that in the summer, I am much less averse to leaving my house in the evening hours, what with the lack of total darkness and bitter cold that thwarts any ambition to combat hermitude during winter months.

So I have simply been busy lately. What have I been up to? Well, let's see.

I picked up and thereafter sampled my free wine. I will say, for Chardonnay, it is not half bad. I might even go so far as to say that for Chardonnay, it is delicious. It was also free, and it's hard to argue with that.

Of course, it would have been far too fiscally responsible of me to walk out with my 12 free bottles of white wine without also spending some money on red. The summer wine sale is in progress, and I cannot see my favorites priced at $6, $7, and $8 a bottle and not do some stocking up. I bought six bottles and yet, I sort of want to go back and buy six more. People, there are BARGAINS in store! It pays to buy in bulk! I have never once felt the urge to acquire a Costco or Sam's Club membership in order to stockpile toilet paper or Ramen noodles, but where alcohol is concerned, apparently I am all about economies of scale. My logic knows no bounds. My priorities not remotely flawed.

Moving on. What else has happened recently? Well, it finally rained. It rained right in the middle of the outdoor viewing of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that I attended, but it rained nonetheless. Also, one (just one!) of my cherry tomatoes has turned nearly red. I think that had more to do with luck or fertilizer than with rain, but the rain is welcome in any case. Neither the rain nor the fertilizer has saved my Big Beef tomatoes, unfortunately. Today, the most promising-looking one of those somehow entirely disappeared. I stared at my tomato plants for a full two minutes pondering its sudden absence. Whatever animal, neighbor, or lawn gnome took off with it was probably watching me, laughing, the whole time.

In more interesting news, I attended four shows in six days. I am totally a Girl About Town. The last of those was a semi-secret, semi-private Jenny Lewis show that I scored free tickets to on my way out of another show. It was sponsored by Target and Converse, meaning it was very corporatey and logo-laden, but we had a lovely time nonetheless. Plus, I got a free girly red martini in a blinking martini glass, and nothing says "Fun" like a blinking martini, no? You like blinking lights, don't you? (Like the one on the waffle iron. Or the little guy on the Don't Walk sign. I may be tired and losing my focus here, but somebody please get that reference.)

Also, I planned two vacations. Actually, not so much "planned" as "committed to." And this may have happened before my last post and I just neglected to mention it until now. I did say I was overdue for a vacation. Apparently my remedy for that is to take two. Hurrah! First up is a week-long road trip to the Badlands, etc. (South Dakota tips, anyone?) Then in September it's a long weekend in L.A. Unlike my last trip out of the state, neither of these will be with my coworkers. Mexico may beat South Dakota on most people's list of hot spots worth visiting, but being able to return from vacation without saying, "Huh. Haven't been in this office for a while, and yet, I just saw YOU yesterday!" ranks pretty high on my list. I can't wait.

And finally, in less exciting news, I have developed an awesome case of insomnia. Oh man, it is the best. Know what's even better than feeling tired and headachey and nauseated all day because you have a hangover? Feeling tired and headachey and nauseated all day without even having had the fun of an irresponsible bender the night before to warrant it. As I type away right now, my head is heavy, my eyelids are drooping, and yet, like magic, I am certain the moment my head hits my pillow, I will be wide awake, ready to tackle all the world's problems (or at least, ponder incessantly the most trivial of my own). If you have any remedies or suggestions for this dilemma, I would love to hear them. Partying like a rock star is one thing. Looking and feeling as though I've partied like one without having done any actual partying is quite another. Yawn.

South Dakota! I love South Dakota! If you're a total nerd like me, may I recommend Mammoth Site? It's a tar pit that lots of prehistoric animals (including mammoths, obvs) fell in and died. Then, when they started excavating it, they built a building over top of it and you can tour it! It's awesome...uh, if you're into dinosaur bones and stuff. And Mount Rushmore is great, but there's not really much to do except walk up, see it, take some pictures, and move on. But the Badlands and the Black Hills are gorgeous! We just drove around and looked at the scenery most of the time.

1. I wish I could go days without seeing either of my bosses! God, you're lucky.

2. I used to play the "How Long Would It Take to Find Me," too! In my scenario, I was usually dead for five or six days before the dogs started to gnaw on my arm and my phone rang. Depressing, but I go days and days without hearing from people - weeks, in my dad's case. Good thing Darren's here!

1. I wish I could go days without seeing either of my bosses! God, you're lucky.

2. I used to play the "How Long Would It Take to Find Me," too! In my scenario, I was usually dead for five or six days before the dogs started to gnaw on my arm and my phone rang. Depressing, but I go days and days without hearing from people - weeks, in my dad's case. Good thing Darren's here!

I have given a co-worker strict instructions (and I hope she knows I'm serious) that if I mysteriously don't show up to work one day, she is to show up at my house and use the spare key I've given her to make sure I'm not lying there incapacitated. 'Cause if I'm...capacitated, I'll always at least call.

If I become incapacitated over the weekend, I guess I'll have to rely on the innate nosiness of my next-door neighbors. Which, actually, might be okay--they told me that the (very) old lady who lived in the house before me once fell down between the wall and the bed and couldn't get up, and the guy across the street noticed she hadn't opened her drapes for the day and called for help. They broke down the door and found her. So, hopefully, my neighbors will similarly have MY back.

Monkey--My mom used to suggest listing all the states in alphabetical order in my head (or listing all the capitals) when I couldn't sleep. Is that what you mean by the geography game? Incidentally, I suck at geography, so anything harder than that and my mind would just keep wandering. I play a name game in my head instead--trying to come up with a name for each letter of the alphabet, using various parameters. Even that hasn't worked lately.

Shelly--Thanks for the tips! I will add Mammoth Site to the list of things to research.

Heather--I can go months without hearing from my parents. It really is better to have other people keeping tabs on me. :-)

R--Yep, it was a whole case, which is 12 bottles. Hurrah! And thank you for enabling my wine-buying habit. I will email you about the show, as I owe you an email anyway and I hate it when my comments back to comments are longer than an actual post. :-)

Jess--Are you on FB every day? I almost never see you post anything there! I do think FB may be the best venue for this sort of check-in, however. With all those people in my friend list, surely ONE of them will notice if I disappear...

R--Hee.

Liz--Does your coworker also have strict instructions to get rid of anything in particular in your house if you DO meet your demise? ;-) We all should have someone like that, right? And WOW. Those are some nosy and observant neighbors. Glad there was a benefit to it at least!

Stacey--See, I think you can have *enough* wine, but you can never nave *too much* wine! (I went back and bought more sale stuff today.) :-) And bummer you've got that unwarranted hangover, too. Mine lasted nearly three days. Here's hoping yours vanishes sooner than that.

I can't believe you're trying to guilt me into joining Facebook to save your life. I'll just start emailing you every day that I don't get a comment for you. :-)

When I was single (and living here in this town with no family), a person "quit" their job at my place of employment by simply not showing up at work anymore. No one ever called to check on her, and we mailed her her final check. My then-boss said not to call her, that she knew she had a job, and would come in if she wanted to keep it. I informed several coworkers that if I ever just stop showing up, something is wrong, and to please follow up on it.

My dad's brother died at home alone and it wasn't discovered for several days. Fortunately, it was winter. A few years later, my mom's brother died at home alone and it was discovered shortly thereafter, which was fortunate as it was July. I am pretty sure I will go the same way as it has now become something of a family tradition.

I rarely have insomnia anymore, but what always cured it for me was writing letters in my head telling the intended recipient all the ways in which he or she had disappointed me. By the time I got to, "you should be ashamed of yourself!" I was almost asleep.

I would kill to see a private Jenny Lewis concert. You hear that, Jenny?

Anyway, I've been using melatonin for years now when I can't sleep and I find it's much better than Tylenol PM because that makes me groggy. Melatonin is natural and resets your body's clock- it's what a lot of airline pilots recommend when they have weird overnight work shifts. You can get it in GNC or Whole Foods.

Yep. I know I'm all about med-free remedies, but I get wicked, miserable bouts of insomnia and I need to break the cycle sometimes. It's the only thing that's ever really worked for me, unfortunately. Good news is that I only need to take one, get a good night's sleep, feel like a zombie the next day, and then I'm good until the next bout.